Tuesday, May 12, 2009

At least some part of Iran's leadership seems capable of embarrassment.

That's as good explanation as any for a Tehran appeals court's abrupt reversal of course in the case of Roxana Saberi, a 32-year-old American journalist.

Her conviction on the implausible charge of espionage may have been a case of serious misjudgment or, coming as it did after President Obama expressed openness to talks with Iran, an attempt by some in the regime to derail possible rapprochement with the United States.

Saberi is one of those only-in-America stories, Her father is of Iranian origin, her mother of Japanese; she grew up in Fargo, N.D., and is a former Miss North Dakota. And it's not like the Iranian government didn't know she was there or what she was up to. She has reported from Iran, for NPR and the BBC among others, for the last six years.

She was arrested in January for illegally purchasing a bottle of wine. That charge was upgraded to working on press credentials that were revoked three years ago. And that charge, in turn, was increased to spying for the United States, for which she was convicted after a perfunctory, one-day trial in secret and sentenced to eight years in prison.

If someone in authority thought she could be held quietly for later use as a bargaining chip, they were terribly mistaken. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the charges as bogus and called for her immediate release; so did several European nations and human rights groups.

Finally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly called for her to be given a new hearing.

The appeals court knocked her sentence down to two years, suspended, and released her. An appeals court spokesman said it was a gesture of ``Islamic mercy." Maybe so but it took a lot of international pressure to squeeze it out of them.

Not so lucky are American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling who were grabbed March 17 by North Korean border guards on the border with China while working on a story about North Korean defectors. In violation of international law, the pair has been denied any access to U.S. diplomats and no contact at all with Western diplomats since March 30.

North Korea says it will put the two women on trial for ``hostile acts." Unfortunately for Lee and Ling the North Korean regime is incapable of embarrassment.